D.C is going all the way...to a police state

This is a discussion on D.C is going all the way...to a police state within the Law Enforcement, Military & Homeland Security Discussion forums, part of the Related Topics category; Originally Posted by SelfDefense
Just curious, but how many would prefer gangbangers, thugs, scumbags and drug pushers to have free run of YOUR neighborhood?
That ...

Just curious, but how many would prefer gangbangers, thugs, scumbags and drug pushers to have free run of YOUR neighborhood?

That is a false dilemma embedded in a straw-man argument.

A false dilemma (also called false dichotomy, the either-or fallacy, or false bifurcation) involves a situation in which only two alternatives are considered, when in fact there are other options. And in this case many other options -- some of which have been talked about here.

A straw-man argument is an argument based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "set up a straw-man" or "set up a straw man argument" is to describe a position that superficially resembles an opponent's actual view but is easier to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent.

Both are informal fallacy. An informal fallacy is an argument pattern that is wrong due to a mistake in its reasoning.

No, I would NOT prefer gangbangers, thugs, scumbags and drug pushers to have free run of ANY neighborhood -- including mine.

However, there are many options to prevent that -- options that do not thrash the Constitution and further erode liberty.

Last edited by DaveH; June 7th, 2008 at 09:51 AM.
Reason: fix the logical construct of the 1st sentence

No, it was a simple question. It is not a false dilemma as I provided no either/or scenario. It is certainly not an argument. You seem to read more into it than my intent. It is is just a question, which you eventually answered.

No, I would NOT prefer gangbangers, thugs, scumbags and drug pushers to have free run of ANY neighborhood -- including mine.

Good. That is the response I expected, of course. The solution proposed in D.C. addresses this very grave problem. It is not some theoretical test of 'rights' or a demonstration of government power. It is a real crisis that demands attention and needs solutions.

However, there are many options to prevent that -- options that do not thrash the Constitution and further erode liberty.

These types of checkpoints do not 'thrash' the Constitution. If you are trying to argue that it is a violation of Fourth Amendment, that is simply wrong. The Fourth Amendment addresses unreasonable search and seizure. Nothing is being searched and nothing is seized by asking for identification and aksing a few simple questions.

I do not like the idea of these types of checkpoints (I am absolutely in favor of border patrol checkpoints.) But, in fact, they are not in violation of the Constitution and not against the law. They are very similar to a gated community, where there is a guard on duty to make sure people attempting to enter live or are visiting someone who lives in the community. And they are not too dissimilar to neighborhood watch programs.

You claim there are many other options. Instead of bashing the path chosen, as everyone in the thread has done, perhaps someone could come up with real, workable solutions other than to arm everyone. Personally, I would rather the scumbags not be in the neighborhood rather than need to get into a shootout.

If they would put these low lifes in jail rather than simply turn them around then these checkpoints might have a real impact in making the neighborhoods safer.

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No, it was a simple question. It is not a false dilemma as I provided no either/or scenario. It is certainly not an argument. You seem to read more into it than my intent.

The use of a so called "simple question" is a rhetoric device to set-up a straw-man position. And I read your intent dead on. See:

Instead of bashing the path chosen, as everyone in the thread has done, perhaps someone could come up with real, workable solutions other than to arm everyone.

I, for one one do not limit the other half of this "false dilemma" to just "arm everyone." Also, johnsr proposed an option of returning to foot patrol community policing as opposed to squad-car responding.

These types of checkpoints do not 'thrash' the Constitution

I suspect this could go to the court level where we will find out if you are right. But, I (for one) don't think the practice passes the "Terry" test. We need to wait to see.

They are very similar to a gated community, where there is a guard on duty to make sure people attempting to enter live or are visiting someone who lives in the community.

Don't know about the gated-community where you are.

My experience with them was that they are "private property" roads and all. The guard is like a mall security type -- an employee of the owner(s) enforcing the rules that the community association has established and the residence bought into. These private guards are stopping folk tyring to enter private property.

That is far different from "Paper Please!!!" / Internal Passport check points demanding papers from everyone in the car to control who can drive on the public streets of a neighborhood where only the "right" people can drive (with the Government, not the neighborhood owners/residence, deciding what is a valid reason for driving into the area, etc.).

And they are not too dissimilar to neighborhood watch programs.

Again, Don't know about where you are, but the neighborhood watch I belonged to for a number of years did not stop people driving into our neighborhood. We didn't stop anyone in a "Paper Please!!!" / Internal Passport check points mode. We watch, we recorded what was in plain sight, and if need called the LEOs "suspicious" activity information -- or, in very rare cases, executed a "citizen's arrest" (which took lots of "cause.")

You claim there are many other options. Instead of bashing the path chosen, as everyone in the thread has done, perhaps someone could come up with real, workable solutions other than to arm everyone.

We already have a suggestion of returning to foot patrol community policing.

How about passing a RICO or Federal Kidnapping type law to deal with gangs with interstate membership and an ongoing history/pattern of violence?

How about keeping the low lifes in jail, once they are convicted in the first place?

How about returning to chain-gangs, not hotel stays.

How about an urban version of a "chain-gang" where "doing time" isn't a "badge of honor" or a "rite of passage", but let all the folk in his own hood see "bad boy (fill-in-the-name)" sweeping the street, picking up all the trash, filling potholes, etc?

How about making all felonies with a deadly weapon (note: any deadly weapon) carry mandatory consecutive sentences of long jail terms.

How about making any "drive-by" shooting a capital crime -- whether or not anyone dies?

How about all States doing away with "trigger-man" type laws? (some States do have a law where if you participate in a crime where someone dies, even an accomplice, you go down for murder, even if you were only the driver)

How about using "conspiracy to" laws against all Gang members?

OIOW, how about use the laws we have and making better laws to punish the crimes.

Personally, I would rather the scumbags not be in the neighborhood rather than need to get into a shootout.

I think we all would.

If they would put these low lifes in jail ... might have a real impact in making the neighborhoods safer.

The use of a so called "simple question" is a rhetoric device to set-up a straw-man position. And I read your intent dead on.

No, you did not. It was a simple question meant to further the discussion because this is an important issue. The fact is that we are pretty much in agreement other than the issue whether the checkpoints violate a prohibition on unreasonable search and seizure.

I suspect this could go to the court level where we will find out if you are right. But, I (for one) don't think the practice passes the "Terry" test. We need to wait to see.

I really don't care what the courts say. They do not make the law. They do not enforce the law. By design, the judicial branch is the weakest of the coequal branches of government. It is obvious that there is no unreasonable search or seizure involved in these checkpoints.

My experience with them was that they are "private property" roads and all. The guard is like a mall security type -- an employee of the owner(s) enforcing the rules that the community association has established and the residence bought into. These private guards are stopping folk tyring to enter private property.

That is what I had in mind. That is why I used it as an example as being similar. The guard is a police officer, an employee of the government (the people) enforcing the community standards (no thugs in my neighborhood) and what the people expected when they bought their property. No one buys their home with the expectation that thugs and gangs will roam their streets. These public servants are trying to stop folks entering a neighborhood (for the purpose of home invasions, durg distribution...) in order to protect the people and protect their private property.

That is far different from "Paper Please!!!" / Internal Passport check points demanding papers from everyone in the car to control who can drive on the public streets of a neighborhood where only the "right" people can drive (with the Government, not the neighborhood owners/residence, deciding what is a valid reason for driving into the area, etc.).

It is not an internal passport check (that is what the Border Patrol checkpoints are doing, quite legally I will add.) And yes, the wrong people should be disallowed from accessing potential crime victims. As I said, this is not a theoretical scenaro. It is real. I suggest that the people of these targeted neighborhoods are completely in favor of the additional protection. Only those who always use the slippery slope arguments (a logical fallacy, by the way) are against it..and probably the ACLU because some gangbanger's 'rights' are thought to be violated. If you deprive a thug of his rights the next thing you know is innocent people will be lined up and shot!

The fact is that many people pay a lot of money to live in a gated community. I would think that anyone would if they were given that option. Whether this is a good use of public money as opposed to the cost of allowing these low lifes free run is another debate.

We already have a suggestion of returning to foot patrol community policing.

How about passing a RICO or Federal Kidnapping type law to deal with gangs with interstate membership and an ongoing history/pattern of violence?

How about keeping the low lifes in jail, once they are convicted in the first place?

How about returning to chain-gangs, not hotel stays.

How about an urban version of a "chain-gang" where "doing time" isn't a "badge of honor" or a "rite of passage", but let all the folk in his own hood see "bad boy (fill-in-the-name)" sweeping the street, picking up all the trash, filling potholes, etc?

How about making all felonies with a deadly weapon (note: any deadly weapon) carry mandatory consecutive sentences of long jail terms.

How about making any "drive-by" shooting a capital crime -- whether or not anyone dies?

How about all States doing away with "trigger-man" type laws? (some States do have a law where if you participate in a crime where someone dies, even an accomplice, you go down for murder, even if you were only the driver)

How about using "conspiracy to" laws against all Gang members?

OIOW, how about use the laws we have and making better laws to punish the crimes.

geez, what a mess this is going to turn into, c'mon ACLU, where are you ?

The ACLU (anti-American Communist Leftist Union) is too busy defending pedophilia, enemy combatants, illegal aliens as well as excising religion from the public square to have any extra time for this issue.

Uh, are you talking about the same organization....

Originally Posted by SelfDefense

The ACLU (anti-American Communist Leftist Union) is too busy defending pedophilia, enemy combatants, illegal aliens as well as excising religion from the public square to have any extra time for this issue.

Uh, are you talking about the same organization that employes (ed) Libertarian Presidential candidate and former (very conservative) Congress Critter Bob Barr?

Do you really think one of the most consistently conservative Republican Congressmen, a man who I think headed the Clinton impeachment proceedings at The House--if not headed certainly led the charge--Do you think he would be working for a "anti-American Communist Leftist Union" organization?

(with apologies for the awkward run-on sentence)

The truth is, the ACLU has done a great deal of good for our country.
If you believe in the Bill of Rights you need to be supporting them in their efforts to prevent its erosion.

The only folks who fear the ACLU are those who want to take your freedom from you, millimeter by millimeter.

Uh, are you talking about the same organization that employes (ed) Libertarian Presidential candidate and former (very conservative) Congress Critter Bob Barr?

Bob Barr is no friend of America. If he manages to split the vote he will pave the way for Obama, who is no friend of gun rights advocates. There is not much difference between liberals and libertarians.

The truth is, the ACLU has done a great deal of good for our country.
If you believe in the Bill of Rights you need to be supporting them in their efforts to prevent its erosion.

The only folks who fear the ACLU are those who want to take your freedom from you, millimeter by millimeter.

I could probably say it better, but Devvy Kidd does a pretty good job exposing the anti-American ACLU:

Earl Browder was general secretary of the Communist Party of the United States from 1930 through its dissolution in 1944. When the party was reconstituted as the Communist Political Association later that year, Browder was chosen as its president. Browder proudly proclaimed that the ACLU functioned as "a transmission belt" for the party. To deny the ACLU's founding was attached at the hip to communist organizations is to deny what can easily be proven as truth.

For the past few decades, the ACLU has been on a major crusade to destroy Christianity in America, promote filth under "freedom of speech and expression," and of course, vigorously defend the homosexual culture of death. On Jan. 10, 1963, Congressman Albert S. Herlong Jr., D-Fla., read a list of 45 communist goals into the Congressional Record. Below are the communist goals being implemented by the ACLU in their quest to destroy America's culture and traditions:

Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions, by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all form of artistic expression. An American communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings," substituting shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.

Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio and television.

Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural and healthy."

Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity, which does not need a "religious crutch."

Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the grounds that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of "the big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the communists took over. Obliterating the American past, with its antecedents in principles of freedom, liberty and private ownership is a major goal of the communists then and now.
Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture &ndash; education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

Anyone who has been following the destructive path of the ACLU can easily see how effective these communist goals have been implemented to "promote democracy" and protect your "civil rights." Lenin stated: "Communism alone is capable of providing really complete democracy." (See Tucker, "The Lenin Anthology"). James Madison, known as the "Father of the Constitution" had something different to say about a democracy:

Democracy is the most vile form of government ... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention, have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property, and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.

Perhaps it's time to recognize the ACLU as the American Communist Lawyers Union instead of their disingenuous "civil rights" stage name.

The ACLU (anti-American Communist Leftist Union) is too busy defending pedophilia, enemy combatants, illegal aliens as well as excising religion from the public square to have any extra time for this issue.

yeah, I know, that was sarcasm on my part in case anyone didn't know

Uh, are you talking about the same organization....

umm, I'm pretty sure that if you made a list of the times the ACLU has protected gun rights/things related to gun rights, and made a list of things/times the ACLU defended the things that SelfDefense listed above, the second list would be miles long and the first list would be non-existent

My goodness

Originally Posted by SelfDefense

Bob Barr is no friend of America. If he manages to split the vote he will pave the way for Obama, who is no friend of gun rights advocates. There is not much difference between liberals and libertarians.

"There is not much difference between liberals and libertarians."

That is quite a statement. Let's see. On gun rights-- Are they not poles apart? On labor relations-- are they not poles apart? On property rights-- are they not poles apart? On taxation--are they not poles apart? On regulation of industry-- are they not poles apart?

I think some of the rhetoric regarding both the ACLU and Bobb Barr himself is --a little overstretched.

10. Freedom of the press. Whether it's radio, TV, the press, or the internet, government does not have the right to decide what information you should be exposed to.

9. Freedom of religion. It is not the government's job to legislate morality.

8. Cut military spending. The amount of money the United States spends on military today is positively obscene.

7. Drug laws do more harm than good. Jimmy Carter publically favored decriminalization of pot. Unfortunately when we *elect* liberals they tend to flake out on this issue in order to appear "tough on crime," but we all know that they all know the right answer is to relegalize the stuff. Over half the people in federal prisons today are there for non-violent drug offenses.

6. Stop trying to be the world's policeman. The rest of the world has to learn to solve a few problems on its own sometime; why not now? Liberals either expect foreign policy goals to "serve corporate interests" to the detriment of doing the right thing or they expect the government to ignore the interest of local populations in order to further goals like "stability." And you know something? They're right!

5. Let people immigrate and emigrate freely. We need all the help we can get from abroad. Despite all the rhetoric you read in the press, immigration to the US is a lot lower than it has been in the past, not just as a percentage of population but in absolute numbers as well. And their effect on our well-being is generally positive.

4. Repeal regulations on sex by consenting adults. Hey, and as long as we're getting rid of the various and sundry sodomy laws, let's finally allow gays in the military like Bill promised us in '92...

3. Military service should be voluntary. The Libertarian party was born partly out of a response to the draft during the Vietnam war.

2. Keep abortions legal! I like to call myself "pro-choice on everything".

And the number one political issue Liberals and Libertarians can often agree on is...

It sounds like the folks in DC are following the actions of the federal government. Instead of using terrorism as an excuse to trample peoples rights or circumvent the law, and do what they please, they are using crime as a reason to do away with peoples rights and circumvent the law.

I guess as long as people are willing to roll over and support things of this nature with the excuse, well it is for the public good, or they are just going after the bad guys you don't have anything to worry about, then it will be done. Talk about a slippery slope.

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